


I Give That Hope Your Name

by Neffectual



Series: one step forward, two steps back [5]
Category: BritWres, Professional Wrestling, Progress Wrestling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Melancholy, Mental Instability, Platonic Relationships, Sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: They're both falling apart like a death spiral, winding them closer and closer until the only way to ignore it is to let it happen, to let their fingers brush and no longer pretend that they don't need each other.





	I Give That Hope Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> _I build each one of my days out of hope_   
>  _And I give that hope your name_   
>  _And I don't know you that well_   
>  _But it don't take much to tell_   
>  _Either you don't have the balls_   
>  _Or you don't feel the same_
> 
> _Come here_  
>  _Stand in front of the light_  
>  _Stand still_  
>  _So I can see your silhouette_  
>  _I hope_  
>  _You have got all night_  
>  _'cause I'm not done looking_  
>  _No, I'm not done looking yet._  
>  Overlap - Ani DiFranco

If there’s one thing he’s sick of being, it’s sorry. Every night, another show, another word, another slow, silent apology as his body grinds to dust beneath the weight of the work, the weight of the world. Every night another fucking loss until he’s more tired of eating mat than he is of staring into smiling faces, of nursing drinks because there’s a reputation to keep up and he’s fucked if he’s losing that as well as everything else. Some bloke once said that if you can’t have their love, you can have their fear, but Jimmy knows that there’s something so much more wonderful than that, something which can swing on a fucking dime and change when someone else walks into the room, and that’s enough respect to let a man play out a role in front of you and pander to his vanity to give him what he wants.

It’s the similarity between them both, he thinks, when he lets himself think at all, that they both know a little about that sort of vanity. For all that Jimmy opens himself up to take the sting out of snide comments and Jack wears his own insecurities like he’s got a coat of his own, woven out of nervous laughter and well-chewed nails rasping against his thigh – they’re the same in that, at least. They don’t line up perfectly, they’re not that perfect, but where they’re the same, Jimmy thinks no one’s ever understood him quite so well, has never managed to overlap in that particular manner. They shouldn’t work together, not like this, in the silence where a nod is passed and nothing else needs to be said, but they do, and he wishes he could make it stop, because being known down to his bones makes him itch to change, and he’s been set in his ways for so long that he doesn’t even know what that would look like.

You’d think, if you were a fool, and believed that everything you see in the ring is nothing but truth, that they’d be on each other like starving dogs, that Jack’s starved for touch, that he needs a hand between his legs to help him cope with the myriad thoughts swirling around his brain, but then, if you were a fool, you’d say this was as unlikely a pairing as you’d ever seen. Instead, Jimmy gives him the space he needs to breathe, and Jack gives him the soft, casual touch – fleeting, against everything that time in the ring tells them, it’s never overt – a brush of fingertips over Jimmy’s knuckles in a way that says he’s there, if Jimmy needs to cling. He doesn’t, not often, but to know the offer’s there helps him stand stalwart against everything anyway.

 

It’s not a relationship, not really, not in the traditional sense, but then, Jimmy’s never really thought of himself as a traditional sort of man, not when it comes to getting what he wants or keeping what he needs. He knows he clings on tight to the things that mean a lot to him, and it speaks volumes for Jack that he doesn’t need to keep that grip there, doesn’t need to chokehold the boy to stop him from walking away. He doesn’t feel insecure when he’s got those soft fingers stroking over the pulse point at his wrist, when he can stand next to someone in the pub and carry on a conversation like Jack’s fingers aren’t ghosts on his skin, when there are so many fucking ghosts underneath that skin already. Sometimes he thinks the scars, the fresh wounds, are just ways to try and let out those hauntings, to make himself less of a ghost train in the darkness, and something closer to what Jack needs.

Their differences make them stronger, too, give them each a balance on their own that means needing touch or needing space is never a weakness – they work like the best tag teams, one flowing in to meet where the other has shortcomings, and Jimmy wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling like he’s nothing but shortcomings. Nothing but mistakes and scars and injuries and old wounds that have nothing to do with what’s written on his skin. Sometimes, he pulls his wrist away from Jack’s hand, pulls himself free and insists he doesn’t need that calming, anchoring touch, that solid presence that keeps him from flying off the handle and losing himself to the darkness that’s always settling on the sidelines, ready to come out to play. When he does, Jack nods, lets him go, but doesn’t leave. No matter how viciously Jimmy locks himself away, Jack waits patiently outside the door for him to shove the key under it and let him in to touch all the parts of Jimmy that never see the light of day.

Usually it’s Jack who comes to Jimmy, knowing that he can’t say what he needs, can’t ask for it, because in the darkest moments, he feels so unworthy of that calmness, that strength that Jack lends him. But once or twice, Jimmy’s gone to Jack, fingers trembling, lips dry and cracked, because he hasn’t slept in days and his brain is screaming at him to do something fucking stupid, and sure, there’s a joke in there somewhere about Jack’s intelligence, but Jimmy’s not going to fucking make it as he folds himself into arms that close around him like they’re going to keep out everything. Jimmy’s never felt more whole, never felt safer, never felt more like he doesn’t have to laugh it all off, than when Jack’s got him wrapped up, spooned against him, and he can feel the other man’s breath at the back of his neck.

 

When he wakes from the best sleep he’s had in weeks, he just lies there, lets Jack press a chaste kiss to the side of his neck and stares blankly at the wall. He wants to get up and leave, wants to pretend this never happened, that it hasn’t happened once a month for the last three months as he slowly falls apart and like he’s not going to keep doing this, falling into Jack’s bed for a way to keep his grip on the world with just a hand around on his wrist. It pins him down like a butterfly to a cork-board, and he might want to leave, but that soft pressure – not even a grip, not really, like Jack knows how he’d react to being held still – of a hand against his pulse point keeps him there more than anything else.

“Sorry,” he rasps, when he does move, staggering to the bathroom like it’s an escape, a door between them like it’s going to stop him from getting back into the bed afterwards, like giving himself time to think is a good idea. It’s not – it’s not love, no matter how his heart fails when it’s been too long since they’ve seen each other, it’s not, they don’t even touch like that. It’s got nothing to do with sex, and anyone who lies and thinks they know Jack would laugh at the idea that the two of them could lie side by side and it wouldn’t be anything to do with sex. He’s so fucking sick of being sorry.  
  
He knows, when he opens the door, silhouetted by the light behind him and the darkness in front, that Jack’s eyes are on him, watching, just for a moment, before Jimmy clicks the light off and walks blindly back to the bed.

“Don’t you apologise to me,” Jack says, faux huff in his voice before he drops it, because here, for once, there’s no false front they have to offer to those around them. “I mean it. Nothing to be sorry for.”

This time, when Jimmy lies back down, he doesn’t stiffen at the arm around his waist, just lets himself relax into it, accept the brush of lips across the shaved hair behind his ear, and settles down. He doesn’t know what they are, but then, here, unlike in the ring, there’s no real need for roles and labels and names to be easily understood. Here, just to be held like this, with no one expecting anything from him, it’s the easiest thing in the world to close his eyes, stay down, and let his hope flourish.


End file.
